Póg mo thóin
by purenonsense
Summary: After hunting in the woods, Connor comes across a vision of his deceased brother Murphy, only alive and with a southern twang in his voice. Can Connor see passed the similarities between his dead brother and this country hick, or will his already faulty mind get the best of him? Set in between season 3 and season 4.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Boondock Saints, The Walking Dead, or any of the references I make. They belong to Troy Duffy and Robert Kirkman, respectively.  
I own Alice and Red Donahue, and the men and women in the camp.

(Rated M for Language, Violence, Gore, and future smut.)

* * *

Connor MacManus was tired. The worst sort of tired when nothing seems to go right and in the end you don't care what happens. In his mind, he thought that tonight was the night that he was going to say goodbye to the world for the last time.

He rested, grounding himself against a tall maple tree while the results of his exhaustion laid around him in pools of infected blood. Sighing heavily against the strong tree, he took the time to survey the carnage; with a clear mind, noting the damaged he had inflicted.

Three thin, decaying bodies laid around him in various stages dismemberment. For one, he'd bashed its head in with an aluminum baseball bat, the remains of the infected brain matter scattered with fragments of crushed skull. Another he'd taken to beating its face against the very tree he leaned on for support, and after, had ripped off the arms and through them for more curious walkers to find.

The last one, the toughest and angrier of them all, he'd beaten with his fists, getting every pint of rage and guilt out with every bone cracking blow to the face. Even after brutally killing the undead, he still had a fire in his belly, an uncontrollable bloodlust more extreme than anything he'd felt before.

These things, the shells of the previous humans that once lived in that body, were the evil now. It wasn't evil men that this Saint was after; it wasn't Mafiosos, or child molesters; it wasn't rapists or even petty thieves. No, the blood that he craved, the blood that he wanted to spill, the blood that rather around his tightly wound fists and that began to dry around his wrists, was the black, dirty, infected blood of the walkers.

He reached over in his bag, a black gym bag of untold goodies for walker fighting. He'd packed it earlier in the day, taking the items from his group that he thought he'd need if he was to survive on his own, and storing it away for safe keeping. He'd pray that he'd never have to use it, but tonight was the night that Connor MacManus said goodbye to the world.

With his knuckles bleeding profusely, he opened the zipper of the duffle bag and pulled out a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels that he'd found during one of his groups raids. He hid it away from the group, hoping to save it for a special occasion. For him, that special occasion, be it birthday, Christmas, or just sharing it with someone special, would never come. He was alone, if for the first time in his life, and it was killing him.

He ripped the lid off of the bottle, tossing it beside him without a care as he downed the sweet amber liquor, taking one, two, three large gulps before setting the bottle down in his lap.

For the moment, he realized how dark it had gotten; the big bright moon shining high overhead, giving the Saint a light to see the damage he'd done. He could have felt remorse, pain, anger, sadness, or all of the above, but for him he just felt pity. Pity that these motherless fucks were the only ones that he'd found that night. He was convinced that tonight was the night when the lone Saint of South Boston would walk into the forest and disappear, leaving nothing but a memory to those out there that survived. But, where would be the justice? Where would be the outcry? Evil men still roamed the streets, only they wore a different mask now. It was his and his brothers job to rid the world of this evil so that the good and just should survive. Now there was more evil in the world and less of the Saints.

He craned his head back, taking one last beautiful sight before the smell of blood and flesh brought in his demise in a stumbling horde. The moon was beautiful, lighting up the dark world around him as she hung high in the sky. The stars too, were beautiful, having not remembered the last time he could look up and see the stars.

That night he cursed God three times, this would be the first.

Looking up at the sky, at what his creator had done, Connor began to feel something other than anger or pity: pain. He looked up at the millions of twinkling stars in the sky and cursed every one of them. God had enough time to make a bunch of twinkly dots in the sky, but not enough time to save his brother from his untimely fate? What sort of God does that to the two men that he set out to do his will? Why give them a mission, only to murder one of them before their mission was complete?

He took another swig of Jack, letting the smooth liquid run down his throat as it warmed him from the inside out.

It was times like that when Connor could see why people where giving up on God. He'd been taught to fear God, and that God was kind and just; the pain that you feel in this world being on your own sin and God punishing you for it. What sin could he have committed to earn such a damning fate?

Then, as the mind loves to do late at night, Connor's mind began to wonder, thinking of things that the sun would have scarred away to the darker corners of his mind.

He thought of his group. The people who'd been kind enough to take him and Murphy in when they had nowhere else to go. That taught them how to hunt and catch food, how to dress a wound, and how to kill the living dead. They'd been with the group of about thirty people for about six months, in that time they'd grown close with some of the families, they'd built friendships, for some of them, fallen in love (or what felt like love. Might have been a mild stroke or something)

Then, about a month ago, just over the Georgia/South Carolina border, they got attacked. The horde left the group in a bloody ruin killing over half of the group, including the darker-headed twin of Connor MacManus.

Connor can still smell the gun smoke in his nostrils, he can hear the sounds of shrieking in his ears, he can taste the blood in his mouth, and he can see the exact moment when Murphy MacManus, brother and Saint, left this earth.

The group had to have noticed that he was gone, he thought, trying to shake the memory of the light leaving Murphy's eyes out of his mind. They'd either accept that he was gone, or send out a search party to find him. Connor wished, more than anything, that these people would forget about him. More importantly, that he could forget about them. Her.

He can still see her ice cold blue eyes looking back at him, the innocent look making him feel guilty for leaving while justifying it at the same time. He needed to protect her, and the best way to do that was to leave. Everyone in Connor's life, living and deceased, was in danger from the beginning. Rocco was first, then Greenly, then his Da, then Dolly and Duffy, then Murphy – he didn't want Her to be another name in the list of his guilty subconscious.

He needed to get them out of his head. He shook his head from side to side, grabbing at his temples as he wished they'd just leave. The memories, the smiles, the laughs, the cheer, the joy – all of it! He didn't want any of this anymore. He didn't want to feel guilty for not being there to protect the people that he loved.

He took another drink.

He didn't want to feel the pain in his heart when the thought about Rocco's death, or his Da's, or Murphy's.

Another drink.

He didn't want to worry about whether or not anyone else close to him was going to die the same horrible way that his brother did.

Another.

He didn't want to worry or feel pain.

Another.

He didn't want to care.

Another.

He didn't want to feel.

He stopped himself from self-destructing any more than he had already. Since when did he not want to feel, since when did he not care? He scared himself with his thinking, the dark, depressive thoughts when you're by yourself in the middle of the woods.

Whether the gravity of what he was thinking was getting to him, or the buzz from the alcohol was finally kicking in, he thought about going back to the group. Maybe they hadn't noticed he was gone yet, maybe he could just sneak back into camp while they were all sleeping and pretend it never happened.

In his loneliest, Connor realized how much these people needed him. Since the attack last month, the number of shooters, never mind skill or rank, had dropped to five people in the eight person group.. If it was by skill alone, then the actual number would be two, maybe three. Most of them couldn't hit an oncoming car, much less a walker coming at them getting ready to attack.

Connor stood up, holding onto the tree trunk as his head rushed from standing up too fast / drinking a third of a bottle of Jack by himself. He grabbed the gym bag and slung the strap over his shoulders as he started in the direction of camp. They'd have to take him back. They'd never know he was gone.

They'd never know that tonight was supposed to be the night that Connor MacManus said goodbye to the world

* * *

It was morning before he actually found the camp again. The sight of pitched tents and parked cars a welcoming sign that they hadn't left yet, that they hadn't abandoned him. Trying to step high over the long field grass, Connor walked back to the camp, hoping that his disheveled appearance didn't give the guard on duty reason to shoot him. He was covered in blood, from his hands and arms, to the front of his chest; his hair was messed up and standing on end as he walked to camp with a sleep deprived stumble. If it was him on guard duty, he wouldn't hesitate to shoot.

He noticed the guard on top of the tallest vehicle, a Dodge pickup truck, sitting comfortably on the roof of the cabin with a rifle at his side. He almost wondered if they were asleep, or just terrible at their job before the guard waved to someone down below, alarming them that someone was coming.

"It's Connor!" echoed in the grass field as Connor groaned; his little announcement surely rallying up the previously dormant walkers in the field. Connor had to high tail it now, his muscular frame bouncing in the field as he broke out in a jog. Maybe they'd believe that he was just going for a morning jog, now that he couldn't just sneak into camp anymore.

At camp he saw most of the group standing near the 'entrance' to their little compound, all with looks of confusion, worry, and most prominent of all, anger. Connor knew that expression all too well.

He lifted the strap from over his shoulders, letting the gym bag fall to his side before he was confronted with the barrel of a Peacemaker in his face. Ah, home sweet home. Connor looked passed the barrel to the man holding the gun at him, smirking at the face of the man holding a gun to the Saint's head.

Red was the leader of the group now. His tanned skin wrinkled as he stared down the Irishman with intent to kill. His beady little eyes squinted in the morning sun, his thin lips drawn across into a hard line that practically cut his face in half. His eyes' quick darted down at Connor smirk, giving him more than enough reason to cock the hammer back on his Colt .45

"Where do you think you're going, Leprechaun?" He said, the hint of a repressed southern drawl on his lips. "You think you can just waltz back in here whenever the hell you feel like it?"

It quickly occurred to Connor that he hadn't come up with a good reason to be out so late last night and not come back until the morning. There weren't bars anymore, no all-night drugs stores, and he certainly couldn't use the excuse that he'd gone home with a girl. No, the old-world lies that might have worked on his mother, maybe the police, weren't going to work in this new age. He needed some fresh lies.

About that time, she rounded the corner; her curious nature taking over as she looked over the group to see what the fuss was about. Her eyes darted quickly to the bloodied man with a gun pointed at his face before her feet began to move.

"Connor!" She exclaimed, trying to keep her voice down before she ran to the saint, ignoring her own father's gun pointed at his face. Her short brown hair had been pulled back into cute, pixie-like, pig-tails behind her pale ears. As she got closer, Connor could see the heavy bags developing under her eyes, he could see the early signs of worry lines around her eyes, he could feel the sense of worry that seemed to hover over her like cloud.

She grabbed his hands quickly, looking over the cuts and scrapes on his knuckles. Her blue eyes carefully combed over him for any injury sever enough to cause panic – all of this blood had to have come from somewhere. It wasn't hard to imagine that he could have gotten bitten or scratched out there in the woods late last night - he'd never tell her that; the poor girl was worried as it was.

"You didn't answer my question." Red said, drawing out every syllable with a snarl on his wrinkled, war-torn face. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Back to camp."  
"Bullshit. I don't let deserters back in my camp. You're gonna have to come up with something better than that."  
"Dad..." She warned him, her tone getting just as ferocious as his. It was times like this that Connor could see the family resemblance.  
Red wouldn't back down.

"Where the hell were you last night?"  
"I was taking a piss, yah happy?"  
"All night? What, you got a medical problem, boy?"

Connor gritted his teeth, wanting to explain himself to anyone besides this jackoff.

"No. I got chased by a couple walkers back t'ere, you can go check if yah like. T'ere's t'ree of 'em. They chase me into ta woods and I got lost. Is that good enough for yah?"  
"You mean this is all walker blood?" She asked as she pulled her hands away from the dried blood on his arm, giving up the ghost on trying to find a bite on him until she got answer. Connor nodded his head in silence, rubbing his jaw as a result of a nervous tick he had. While Murph was always more fidgety, more prone to ticks, nervous and anxious all the time - Connor was more calm, level-headed of the two, he liked to believe.

She grabbed him by his hands, the dried blood now flaking from his skin. "I'm gonna fix him up, clean 'em up." She said to her father with an eyebrow raise and a smirk, defiantly calling her father's bluff. "You can come along too if you still want to shoot him."

For the first time, Red blinked, his eyes cutting over to his daughter before rebounding back to Connor, who now shared her look, smirking down the barrel of the gun. Slowly, and without so much as a noise, Red lowered the gun to his side, staring intently at the Irishman. Red' distrust for Connor had steadily been growing over the past month, ever since the attack, Red has gotten more and more strict, while Connor has gotten more and more brazen. For some reason or another, Connor just loved to piss that man off, knowing that it'll probably come back to bite him in the ass.

Connor followed behind her as she pulled him to the far side of the camp, a place out of the beating sun and away from prying eyes. She made him sit down with a command close to how you train your dog, before grabbing the medical supplies and the dwindling first aid kit. Connor sat on the grass, his back and head resting against the rubber tire of the group's blue sedan before she brought her little pouch of goodies beside him.

First thing she grabbed was a clean cotton ball and an unmarked plastic bottle. She dipped the cotton ball into the bottle and tipped them both over, getting some of the medicine on the cotton ball. He watched her move in silence, knowing exactly what to do before she pressed the cotton ball onto his wounded knuckles, sending an intense shock wave of pain up his whole arm.

"Fuck me!" He shouted, before having to actually cover his mouth with his free had to stop from screaming. His eyes cut over to her as she grin like the sadistic little fuck that she was before she pulled the cotton ball away again, this time using another clean cotton ball to clean up open wound.

"You really think your smart don't you?" She asked, messing with the wounds on his hands to help the, now fizzing, medicine deeper into the cuts. "Disappearing in the middle of the night, not telling anyone where you're going – do you really think I'm that stupid?"

Connor looked down at his hands in shame, wanting nothing more than to avoid her eyes for all eternity. He felt the breeze on his skin, if for the first time as she continued to work on his hand, before switching to the other.

Again she grabbed a cotton ball and the nameless medicine and began to work on the other hand, being gentler than the last time.

"I don't t'ink you're stupid." Connor said to her, causing her head to snap up from the tedious work on his hands. "Not by a long shot. You're one of t'e smartest people I know."  
"Then why did you lie?" She asked. "Why tell the group that you were out on a piss run instead of the truth?"  
"It was the truth!"  
"Since when do you need a gym bag to go pee?" She asked, catching him in the lie as Connor's free hand grabbed at the black bag defensively. Connor was stumped; he knew that she'd see right through anything that he told her.

"Reading material." Connor joked, earning a scoff from the blue eyed girl as she lowered her head, getting back down to healing the stubborn Irishman.

It got quiet again. Connor just watched as she worked at his cuts and scrapes, if only she knew what had caused them; his rage that couldn't be controlled, his mind that wouldn't stop wondering, his memories that wouldn't go away.

"You think I don't know you want out?" She asked, cleaning the dried blood around his wrists. The black blood-stained cotton ball washed the dirty blood away from his Celtic cross tattoo on his forearm, giving him even more memories of his brother that he didn't want.  
"What do you mean?"  
"You're not the most subtle man in the world, Connor." She said, disposing of the dirty cotton ball beside her. "Every time you open your mouth you're talking about leaving the group alone, or how better off we'd be without you – you think that doesn't worry me? Last night you scared the hell outta me. I was afraid that you'd actually left me here."  
"I'm sorry."  
"Sorry isn't good enough, Connor. You have to promise you'll never leave me again."

Connor's brows furrowed as he looked up at the young woman, her blue eyes staring back at him, pleading for an answer. She wanted a definite answer to a question that not even he knew the answer to. She reached out for his hands; his big, rough hands engulfed her tiny pale fingers – another plea not to go.

These hands had seen so much bloodshed, people he loved and people who deserved it. To be held by hands that never held blood before, that never held a loved one until their final breath, that never fired a pistol into the back of someone's head. Some people have all the luck.

"Promise me you won't leave me here." She repeated, looking him dead in the eye with a look that he himself had used in the past.  
Connor sighed, deeply.  
"I can't promise t'at, Alice."

He watched as he face fell, they innocent lines on her face turning downwards at the thought of losing her friend. Connor wasn't happy about it either, but he knew that he just couldn't make that promise. He'd always worked better with his brother, and now that he didn't have him anymore, he had to get used to being alone.

She nodded her head, mulling over the words as they ran through her mind a hundred words per second. "Okay. Okay. Okay – fine. Don't promise me that. It's cool. I understand." She said quickly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"But if you leave this group, I'm coming with you."

Connor quickly shook his head.  
"No."  
"Yes."  
"No you're not."  
"Why not?"  
"I'm not going ta be responsible for your death out t'ere. I won't do it, you're not coming wit'."  
"You don't have to be responsible for me. I can handle myself."  
"I'm not havin' you follow me into t'e forest. It's too dangerous."  
"Well then, don't think of it as me following." She said with a smile. "Think of it as me holding myself hostage. I only leave if you leave. If you stay, I stay."

Connor narrowed his eyes at the young woman, watching her smile back at him with a certain cockiness in her face. This woman would be the death of him, he knew it. He tried to stare her down, but to no avail; he broke the gaze first.

"Okay, fine. If I leave, you can come wit'." Connor said, breaking down. With the smile on her face, you'd think he'd told her some good news. "Thank you." She said before returning to his cuts, moving the thin cuts on his shoulders from the thorny trees in the forest.

Connor smirked briefly, wanting to mess with the young woman tending to his wounds.. "And stop that staring thing, you're just like your da."

Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, all before she grabbed the unlabeled medicine bottle, pouring the bottles contents all over the open wounds on his knuckles as he screamed out in agony.

"Graah! You son-of-a-bitch!" Connor shouted, holding his hand wet with medicine as the wound fizzed, bubbled and festered. She sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Maybe now you won't mess with someone with hydrogen peroxide, hm?"

"And ta t'ink, I thought it was pure acid you were pourin' on me hand."  
"Oh honey, I'd never to that to you." She said with a smirk. "I like you too much."  
"You sure have a funny way of showin' it." Connor said as she wrapped up his hands, resembling a boxers hand with the tape around the knuckles.

Red came around the corner, peeking over his daughters shoulder with a strange curiosity. Connor was almost sure he was going to talk about his screaming and the torture that his daughter had put him through. With his dirty hands on his hips, Red walked around to face the two of them. His head down towards the ground as he took in a deep breath, like the next few words were going to be extremely hard to say.

"Connor, we have to talk." Red said before looking to his daughter. "Alice, you can leave."  
Alice went to stand up when Connor grabbed her wrist, holding her right next to him. "No. She stays." Connor said. "Besides, I need a witness if you decide to try and shoot me again."  
"Don't leave the camp again and you won't get shot."  
"Is t'is what you wanted t'a talk to me 'bout? If so, then I really don't see a point in staying here any longer."

"That's exactly my point. We need to move."  
"I actually agree wit' cha. We need to get on t'e road, get back on t'e highway and make our way to Atlanta before sun down. We're just wasting time here. We need ta be moving." Connor said quickly before diving into his gym bag.

His taped hands fumbled in the bag before grabbing onto the ragged and warn map of Georgia. Connor unfolded the map and laid it on the ground, black magic-marker circles littered the page, and a single 'X' marked the spot over Atlanta.

"See, 'ere's what I t'ink. We're here, on t'e other side of King County. We need to get 'ere, into Atlanta. I t'ink if we start moving now, we could make it just outside the Fulton county line before sun down."  
"Yeah, we're not going to do that." Red said point blank, running his hand through his thinning hair.  
"W'at? W'at do ya mean? It's a great plan. We'll be at the CDC before you know it." Connor was getting more irate with every passing second. To make believe that Red was the leader was laughable, Connor had no loyalty to him. With every second, Connor hated the man more and more.

Red rubbed his jaw, scratching the grey five o'clock shadow on his chin.  
"We are gonna go here." Red said, pointing to some farm land three miles from where they were stationed now. "We need a place to relax, take a breather. Daphne is gonna have her baby any day, she doesn't need to be out on the road – "

"T'at's why if we go now we can get t'ere before t'e kid even comes."  
"It's not safe."  
"W'at's not safe about it? T'e possibly of doctors, medicine, survivors, a cure maybe?!"  
"We are not going." Red said, pausing after every word as now both of them were getting tired of the other one.

"It's not safe. You want to run off to Atlanta like you ran off last night, fine, be my guest. But don't take my group down with you." Red and Connor were inches from each other, trying to stare the other man down.

"It's a suicide run. You leave the group, you're dead. Those walkers out there don't care about your fucking plan, they just want a tasty snack. And your skinny ass might just be what they need. If you're gonna go - go. But we're not going."

Connor gritted his teeth before Red smirked at his rage. As he continued to stare down the Irishman, he said quickly "Come one, Alice. We'll leave Mr. Lucky Charms to do some real thinkin'." Alice sighed heavily before standing up, eyeing to two men curiously as they both tried to intimidate the other.  
"Dad." Alice called out. "Come on let's go."  
Red smirked at Connor before following his daughter back to the main group, leaving the Irishman with a lot of questions.

Connor needed to go to the CDC in Atlanta. That had been the plan since the beginning. If there was anyone with a cure, it'd be them. It was a dangerous plan, to change direction in the middle of a mission, and he didn't like it at all. He looked back down at his map, and the little black marker circles that lined I-95, numerous places for a safe haven, a place to rest in between runs.

The group needed something to be hopeful for; what could be more hopeful than a cure?

Connor grabbed his map from the ground and picked up his gym bag, sending the strap around his shoulders. The next course of action was going to the CDC, he knew he had to go, with or without the group. Now, the real challenge would be sneaking out without Alice seeing.

* * *

So... This is my FOURTH time trying to write a Walking Dead fan fiction I can be proud of.  
I wrote this a couple months ago, and I can actually say I'm proud of where the story is going.

I hope you enjoyed it.

~pure.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Boondock Saints, The Walking Dead, or any of the references I make. They belong to Troy Duffy and Robert Kirkman, respectively.  
I own Alice and Red Donahue, and the men and women in the camp.

(Rated M for Language, Violence, and Gore.)

* * *

Connor was packing once more; taking inventory everything he needed to make the trek from the farm lands to Atlanta. He already had his route planned out, now was just to make sure that he had to supplies to get there quickly. He didn't want to be caught up in any drama about his leaving, but he needed to leave.

He cataloged his inventory, checking over anything several times to make sure that he had the right number of everything.

Two desert eagle pistols with silencers, check.  
A bottle of liquor, check.  
Half a pack of cigarettes and lighter, check.  
Rope, check.  
Extra parts from the first aid kit that nobody was gonna miss, check.  
Duct tape, check.

Alice, - … pending.

Connor shoved all the objects into his bag once more, taking special care of the two Desert Eagles and putting them in the hostlers beneath his black jacket, hiding them from view. Once more, he looked over his well laid plan, thinking through all the possibilities for error. He knew that if he stuck to the plan that he'd be fine, but an ache in his stomach told him otherwise. Moving, especially as far as he had to move, wasn't going to be a picnic. Too many chances to get caught by walkers, too many moments when he wouldn't have food to eat or a roof over his head, too many valuable minutes taken to wonder if what he was doing was the right thing.

He knew he was doing the right thing; he needed to know if there was a cure. Even if it couldn't help his brother, Connor needed to know that there was a light at the end of this tunnel of the living dead.

In his thoughts, away from the world, he didn't even heard the sound of boots stomping on the long grass behind him. Alice propped herself against the metal of the blue sedan, watching in silence as Connor packed away his plan in the gym bag.

"So we're really leaving?" She asked, her lips drawn into a straight line as she tried to hide her disappointment. Connor stayed silent, but simply nodded his head.  
"Is it what Red said about Atlanta?"  
Connor stayed quiet, moving around the small camp like a busy little bee.  
"You _do_ know that conversations usually involve two people talking back and forth, right?"

Connor slammed the gym bag down on the ground, his anger tipping over the scales. He took large, animalist breaths in, before turned around to face her, her eyes wide and frightened.  
"Hey, Connor." She said quickly, changing her attitude to one of compassion as she rested her hand on his back, feeling as he breathed in and out. "It's okay. I'm not mad at us for leaving-"  
"We aren't leaving. It's just gonna be me this time."  
"What?"

"I can't put you in t'at position. I'm not gonna let you get killed out there." Connor said, turning back around to put the set of clothes in his bag. "Besides, you're just a kid."  
"I'm not a kid!" She shouted louder than she wanted to. Now it was her turn to be angry as she moved off the cold metal and met his eyes. "I'm 23 years old, I know what I'm doing."

"This isn't something you fuckin' gamble on." He said, catching himself in a déjà vu moment as if he'd rehearsed the line. They didn't listen last time he'd used that line, why mess with tradition?  
"You're not going, t'at's final." Connor said quickly.  
"You're not my dad."  
"No, but if you da finds out t'at you left the group with me, t'en we're both fucked." He said quickly, putting his last pack of cigarettes in the bag. While turned away, Alice moved over the scarcely packed bag, looking over its contents with distaste.

"W'at?" He asked, watching her look over the bags contents. Her eyebrows creased as she bit her bottom lip, concerned for her friends mental health.  
"Nothing. Just tell me: how many hours were you planning on surviving out there?"  
"W'at t'e fuck are you talk'n about?" He asked as she pointed out his poorly planned (and packed) bag.  
"This shits a fucking disgrace!" She said, before diving into the bag and sorting it, pulling out item after item as she went through it. "You can't survive a fucking rain storm with this shit."

She turned back around to face the rest of the group, a majority of them trying to get a fire started for just one more night before leaving for the farmlands tomorrow. None of them even noticed the two planning an escape.

"I'll see what else I can get, but it's got to be better than what you got." She said, turning back to Connor. "If I'm coming along, I might as well want to be useful, you know?" Connor shrugged his shoulders, getting back to his bag as he pulled out a cigarette, putting the filter between his lips before lighting. She smiled at him, making her way closer to him so that the noisy group couldn't hear.

"I know you don't want me coming along, but it's dangerous out there. You can't do this alone, you need somebody to watch your back." She said as he exhaled, blowing the smoke high above her head. "You of all people should know that."

Connor took another deep breath, inhaling the tobacco smoke.

"I'm gonna go see what I can get for the bag, maybe last us a couple days until we get into Atlanta. When are we leaving?"  
"Tonight." He said, this time without fighting her on whether or not she was going. He just found it easier not to argue with the woman, less headaches. "After everyone goes to bed, we'll make our way down the highway."  
"Good, that'll give me enough to gather everything we'll need."

Connor looked back out over the camp, at the few people that had stuck it through the attacks and raids, through everything. Was it worth it? Giving up the group for a shot in the dark?  
He'd given up on better things.  
He was making it to Atlanta, one way or another.

Now, to wait for night fall.

* * *

Shortly after the sun fell on the grass field, the group decided to go to bed. Silas, a man Connor had only met twice in the year that he'd been with the group, was on watch tonight, taking to the makeshift crow's nest on top of the Dodge pickup truck. Looking out over the field, watching for walkers, he'd never notice Connor and Alice leaving for the highway.

Connor lead the small group of two through the field, both hands grasped around the handle of his Desert Eagle pistol, ready to shoot anything that moved. Alice followed close behind, even with the extra weight of the bag around her shoulders she still kept up with him as she wielded her own weapon, a stainless steel machete.

Before either of them knew it, the souls of their shoes were landing on pavement and not grass and questionable hissing things. Connor stayed diligent, watching both sides of the road and keeping his ears open for any groans or moaning. The two of them didn't speak, knowing what the plan was from the second they left the camp.

It was close to two hours on the road before they saw the farm house that Red was talking about earlier. The two-story house was behind a white picket fence that had been busted and covered in both red and black blood. Connor and Alice both made their way passed the stained fence and up the front driveway, two cars still in front of the garage, all of the doors open and trash thrown on the ground, evidence that they weren't the first people to show up at this person's house.

Connor walked up porch stairs, his heavy boots making the tired wooden boards creak. With one hand he opened the storm door, the other holding his gun at the doorjamb. With a closed fist he knocked on the door in a rhythmic tone; Shave-and-a-Hair-Cut…

He waits outside the doorway, waiting for a noise, a bump, a crack, something to trip the wire and cause Connor to go off. Each tick outside made him jump, each animal hiding in a bush thoroughly investigated. The paranoia would go away, he told himself, after they find a nice place to stay for the night. He just needed some sleep.

Turning the doorknob with his free had, Connor walked in the house first, trying his best to cover the first floor as Alice followed suit, quietly closing the door behind the two. Connor lead of into what looked to be the living room.

The couches and end tables were flipped over, either sitting upside down or completely broken. Picture frames ripped off the walls and laid in a pile of broken glass and card paper. Most striking was the dark red streaks of blood that lined the living room, from about the living room leading them into the empty kitchen in the back of the house. Connor carefully walked over the wooden boards, making sure not to step on a creaking board as he made his way towards the kitchen in the back, having to pass by the dining room where a small group of walkers sat, hunched over at the dinner table.

Connor motioned towards the walkers with his pistols, his frantic and confusing hand signals the only communication that the two of them had, and yet Alice understood everything he'd meant. He lifted his gun to the forehead of a sleeping walker before Alice batted his hand away in haste.

She handed him her machete, digging in her own bag for another hunting knife before the two of them began killing. Connor walked up behind one of the Walkers, while he watched Alice sneak up to the head of the table, whose head had fallen backwards away from the table. Connor lifted his hand above his head, starting off by lifting three fingers and indicating the countdown.

Three.

Alice got ready, grabbing the knife tighter in her hands.

Two.

Connor really wished that he had his guns right about now.

One!

Connor slammed the sharp machete down on the sleeping walker's head, slicing its face in half just below the nose. Alice stabbed her walker right in the forehead, pulling her knife out of its head turned the wound into a disease-spreading blood fountain. The commotion with the previous walkers caused the others in the house attack, walkers from other sides of the house now made their way to the dining room to feast on the stupid humans.

Connor gripped the machete with both hands and swung at an oncoming walker, hitting its head with the steel blade like a baseball player aiming for a homerun; its brain splattered on the nicely decorated wallpaper. Alice sliced through the neck of another immobile walker at the table before running over to Connor's side, giving him a little bit of cover before the next wave of walkers came through.

Connor slashed into the walker's skull, cutting the top part of the cranium completely off of it's body as Alice battled with her own walker, stabbing it in the temple repeatedly before she actually hit the brain stem, killing the walker. Connor smirked briefly before a walker came out of left field, taking the saint completely by surprise. The walker lunged forward, wanting a taste of his thick Irish blood, as Connor grabbed its wrists, holding it back and dropping the machete at the same time as he kept the gnawing group of ragged teeth a safe distance away.

"A little help 'ere!" Connor shouted over the commotion, getting his buddy to pay a-fucking-ttention. The snarling, biting mat of hair of a walker got closer to his own, inches away from the Saint's flesh before Alice jumped on the walkers back. Pulling the walker away from Connor, Alice pulled on the long matted hair of the female walker, just enough to move her hunting knife over the decaying flesh, slicing a nice deep gash into her throat. Stabbing her right on top of the head, Alice left the knife in for emphasis, her own personal exclamation point on her death.

"T'anks." Connor said, nervously rubbing the back of his neck as he looked over the carnage. Five walkers attacked, he could have sworn it was more than that though. In the heat of the battle, math tends to go out of the window.

Alice shook her head, "Not a problem." She looked over the violent scene that the two of them had created. Five walker bodies littered the room; varying degrees of blood splatters covered the walls, and each body in its own state of disarray. "We should probably start moving the bodies before it gets too late, right?" She asked to a nodding Connor.

"Yeah. Get t'ese t'ings outta here. We can burn t'e in the mornin'. Tonight, we're gonna rest."  
Alice sighed, like it was the best news she'd ever heard, before picking up her machete that Connor dropped in the heat of the moment, putting the blade back in the sheath on her belt.

Connor and Alice worked to get the walkers bodies out of the house, piling them up in the back yard, right off the front porch. If Red and the group decide to make their way up this way, at least it'll be cleaned out for them.

* * *

They rearranged the living room until it was livable, pushing the over turned couch up against the dining room door, blocking off at least one exit to they could focus on the front door as an entrance. Alice gathered the sofa cushions to make make-shift beds. Connor made his way in with both bags in his hands, searching through the packs for something very important to him. After searching through his black gym bag, he unzipped the dark blue backpack of Alice's finding the small pack of cigarettes and his lights hidden in the bottom.

He didn't ask why they were in her bag; he'd forgotten all anger at the sight of the red and white pack of ash and tar. He took a cigarette and put it between his lips, quickly lighting it before deeply inhaling the smoke. If the walkers didn't kill him, it'd be the cigarettes – knowing his luck. Alice had laid down across her sofa cushions, pulling a heavy coat from one of the bags and draping it over her shoulders. She'd been quiet since they'd emptied the house, her eyes unfocused and watching over the camp in general.

"When were you going to tell me?" She asked, her eyes finally cutting over to Connor as his heart stopped.  
What, what was he supposed to tell her? At this point he had so many secrets in his head, he didn't even know which one she was talking about.  
"What are you talking about?"  
"You and Murphy." She yawned. He rubbed his chin, looking away from the young woman as she used his brother's name. It had been a month and it still hurt as if it was just yesterday that he held his baby brother in his arms for the last time. He wondered when the pain would be over, when he'd no longer feel like he had to hurt something else to make himself better, when he could say his brother's name again.

"You boys were the Saints of South Boston, right?" She asked quickly with a childlike gleam in her eyes. Connor smirked, silently thanking his lucky stars, before nodding his head. "Aye. How'd you figure t'at out?"  
"Red told me when you two first showed up at camp. He saw your tattoos and your faces, and knew instantly who you were. He told me that you guys had killed, like, a hundred people." She said, causing Connor to choke on the poisonous vapor caught in his lungs.

"It-… It wasn't -…" Connor coughed. "It wasn't a hundred people. T'was more like t'irty seven, and we didn't just kill anyone."  
"Right, only heads of the mob?"  
"Right, bad men. We only killed t'e bad men. Rapist, murderers, child molesters, drug dealers – bad men, dead men." Connor took another drag from the cigarette filter.  
"Why? I mean, I understand _why_, but what made you want to do this?"  
"God sent me brot'er and I a message. We had to kill the bad so good would grow. Sort of like now – killing t'e walkers so t'at t'e survivors can live." Connor said.

It wasn't that he hated telling the story of how they got into the business; it was that everyone had the same reaction to it. God telling to do something is psycho, listening to a voice in your head to do something – to kill people, people go to loony bins for the same thing. But for his brother and him, it was God's will on earth, who were they to stay in God's way?

"I don't get it." She said as she turned over on her cushions, facing the ceiling. "You said that you killed murderers, right? Killed maybe one or two people. Who is to say that a man that killed two men is worse than a man who killed thirty seven?"

"We never killed innocent people. Murders kill innocent people, we kill bad people. Get it?"  
"Not really." She yawned, pulling the jacket closer to her chin before Connor realized whose pea-coat jacket it was that she was cuddling up with – he could even see the scorch mark were his twin almost caught himself on fire trying to light a cigarette. The jacket was Murphy's.  
And now the annoying little shit had it wrapped around her shoulders like a fucking blanket.

Connor sighed heavily, putting out his cigarette on the waxed hard wood floor boards before he picked up his sofa cushions. He plopped them down next to Alices' cushions. He could still smell the thick aroma of Murphy's cologne and the fading scent of cigarettes hidden within the fabric.

Alice didn't argue with the Saint getting closer to her, if anything she welcomed the idea of having one of God's every own hit men beside her.

"Connor." She whispered in the dark to the sleepy body beside her. Connor, though his eyes were closed, still nodded his head, groaning at her to let her know that he was still listening. "Do you still believe in the bad men, dead men thing? I mean, no offense, but the line between good and evil is a little blurry now a days. How can you tell who's a good person anymore?"

He rested his hand on her shoulder, comforting her against the answer didn't wouldn't want to hear. "I know t'at I'm not done here yet, so t'ere has to be evil men."  
"Would you know one if you saw one? Like, do they have special headgear or something? There left earlobe is a bit bigger than the other one?"  
Connor laughed under his breath. "No, no. You just have to know them, know what they do. Then you can judge whether it's a good person."

"Character is what you do when you think no one is watching." She said, yawning before breaking out into a smile. "Only the saints are always watching."  
"Damn straight." Connor said with a smirk before closing his eyes.

"Connor?"  
"W'at?"  
"Am I on the list of evil people?"  
"We'll see soon enough."  
"Fuck…" Alice sighed, earning a cheap laugh from Connor before the pair felt asleep.

* * *

I hope you guys enjoyed it!

~pure.


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own the Walking Dead or the Boondock Saints. They belong to Robert Kirkman and Troy Duffy, respectively.

* * *

"Cut through the forest he said!" Alice complained, making her way through the thick brush of the forest as she followed Connor's exhausted lead. "It'll be quicker!"

"Shut it!" Connor shouted back at her as he stepped over a fallen tree, almost slipping on the slimy tree trunk. It had been raining since the early morning hours, giving them both the storm and now a soaking wet and pissed off Connor to deal with. His dirty blonde hair stuck to his head in clumps, his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his body as he made his way deeper into the forest, trying his best to get his bearings.

It was hard enough not knowing his way around the forest, but to have Alice there was a fucking pleasure cruise!

"Do you have any idea where you're going?" She asked, stopping mind stride as she swore that they'd already passed that log before. Connor nodded his head. "''Course I know where I'm goin'. It's on t'e fuckin' map." He said a bit quieter, than normal as he looked around the forest for an end in sight. As a boy in Ireland, he and Murphy had gotten lost in the forest behind their house. He and Murph made their way through the thick bush, ended up at the back of some farmers land.

They survived then, he and Alice could survive now as they wondered in the thick Georgia forest.

Connor's boots grew heavy, the tread of the boot now covered in mud and grass. He slipped several times, catching himself on a branch or a tree trunk before Alice had a chance to see – he didn't need her mocking him for the next couple hours, it was better not to know.

Despite her arguing and complaining, Alice stayed by his side, following closing in his footsteps, treading on the same grass clod, almost slipping on the same slimy tree trunk. She was so close to following him that he'd begun to think of her as his shadow.

"Connor," His shadow whined, holding her hips for a moment as she took a deep breath. "We've been running around in circles – this is the third time I've jumped over that fucking log. Admit it, we're lost."

"We're not fucking lost, alright?" Connor shouted, looking over his now soaked map of the state, checking over his x-marks as the black magic marker bled into the rest of the paper. "I just didn't t'ink it'd take us so long to get to t'e highway t'rough here."

"Well, it is." Alice said, leaning against a tree trunk for support and taking a deep breath. "Maybe you should look over the map again-"

"I have! I've looked over t'e map. I've t'ought about t'is for weeks, planning each fucking detail! I see it in me sleep. You complaining about it isn't helping anyone at t'is point."

"Oh, fuck you." She argued back at the Irishman screaming at her. "This isn't my fault that we're lost in the woods after following you're fucking directions. You're the one with the fucked up plan."

"T'e plan was working!" Connor screamed. Now the two of them were in a screaming match, the possibility of walkers was still a high-class risk. Connor ran his hands through his wet hair, slicking it back as he tried to contain his frustration. As if he wasn't aware that they'd pass the same stump three times, and that they seemed to be turning to the right to whole time, and that they weren't at the highway already. They were burning daylight, and on the grey and miserable day like today, they didn't have much of it to burn.

Alice pushed herself off of the tree and walked up to Connor, inches away from his face. Her blue eyes seemed block out most of the world around him as she said "Calm down. We'll get there."

Her voice low and calming, returning his racing heartbeat back to a normal level and slowing the pace of each breath he took. Her hand sneaked its way around the drenched map, pulling the paper from his hands. "Let me try."

Alice turned on her heel and began to look over the soaked map, pacing the somewhat-level part of the forest as Connor rested his hands on his hips, waiting for the young woman to admit that she didn't know either and hand the map back. That would have made him feel better, if she told him that she didn't know either, that she was just as lost as him.

She lifted her head towards the sky, trying to see through the grey and nasty clouds up above for something she couldn't find. "It's too early…" She said to herself, looking back and forth from the sky to the map, the rain now lighting up a little bit to a brief sprinkle.

"Okay" She said, snapping herself out of her own thoughts before moving over to Connor. "I think if we head that way we should make it out to this country road right here." She said, pointing on the map to a small road that bent around the forest, the exact forest that was supposed to be a short cut from one side of the country road to the other. "Follow that north eight miles and we should start seeing signs for the highway."

"And what if you're wrong?"

"Then we'll run back into Red and the group, then won't we?" She said with a smirk before craning her head up. "We might want to start moving before the walkers get here. They're attracted to sound, you know – and you screaming your head off didn't help things."

"I didn't scream my -!" Connor caught himself getting riled up again, Alice smirk holding him accountable for proving her point. "Fine, let's just go."

Following Alice's plan, the two of them barely spoke to each other, leaving the noise to nature's creatures whistling and undead's moaning. They got louder with every step closer to the road, following the sound of Connor's previous explosion. As he maneuvered in and around the trees and saplings, Connor could smell the dead getting closer. Nobody ever mentioned what death smells like, the combination of rotting eggs, sulfur, and something sickly sweet so strong that Connor could taste it in the back of his throat, making him want to gag.

The dead got closer to the two of them, almost nipping at their heels before Connor turned on them, ramming a hunting knife into their skull. With that, the other walkers were on the attack, all focusing their attention on the Irishman with the knife. Connor stabbed another one in the eye, the long blade reaching the back of the skull as it felt the blade drag on the bone before pulling it out of the walkers head. He kicked the body away before the next one decided to attack, this one coming from the other side of him, knocking him to the ground.

Connor's back hit the ground hard, jarring him and making his vision blur for the longest second of his life. The walker came into focus almost instantly, the lips had rotten away from this walker, giving them only there gnarly set of teeth and no buffer. The walker chomped, resembling those gag toy wind-up dentures that jump around the table, as it got closer to his flesh. Connor struggled, pressing his forearms into the chest of the ravenous walker to give him room to breathe. If the smell was bad earlier, it was knockout-gas bad now.

Connor looked up, looking for Alice as she fought off two walkers with her machete, chopping one into two parts before decapitating the other one. As she fought, surely enough another one came to take its place. This was exactly what he didn't want. He never wanted Alice in danger like this, she should have never come along. Connor's free hand grabbed out at his sides, searching the wet leaves for his weapon. The chomper wasn't giving up, seizing the opportunity of the free hand to get several inches on the Irishman, and giving him a bit of a close shave before his fingers wrapped around the handle of his desert eagle pistol.

In a second, the chomper wen t from threat to confetti, it's head exploding as the bullet connected with tissue. The infected blood and brain matter fell on top of Connor, bathing him from his head to the belt buckle with walker juices. Connor pushed the walker off of himself, lying in the grass for a little while to get his bearings.

He just needed his head to stop spinning for a couple minutes, that's all he wanted. Connor opened his eyes to find the world spinning around him too fast, causing him to actually claw at the wet leaves around him to help him stay still. It didn't help, the whole world was spinning like a carousel and all Connor wanted was to get off the ride.

Alice ran over to his side and began to talk to him, but she sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, muffled and distorted beyond the English language. The only discernible features that Connor to could out that it was in fact Alice, not just a shadowed blob near his face, was her dark hair getting in his face – the only word he could make out of her little speech to him was the word: "Dumbass"

* * *

He groaned, opening his eyes once more to a stopped world. It wasn't spinning anymore, he didn't feel like he was about to get twirled off at any second. Alice's face, it was clear. He saw her pale skin, the freckles on her nose, her piercing blue eyes, her short brown hair – it was completely in focus. Connor sighed heavily, grinning to himself.

"You okay there, _Lucky_?" She said, her fingers resting on his neck and she felt for any sign that the organ in his chest was still pumping blood. She was paler than normal, what little color she did have and abandoned her face as she pulled her lips tight into a small line. She tried to smile at him, but it was forced and fake.

"Sound as an Irish pound." Connor groaned before sitting up, Alice helping to make sure he didn't pass out again. "W'at 'appened?" He said, rubbing the sleep that had accumulated from his eye.

"You passed out." She said, sitting down next to Connor on the wet ground. Connor rubbed the back of his head, feeling his wet hair standing up on end while the front half of his head was almost dry. "You were out for about fifteen minutes."

"W'at?" Connor hissed, trying his best to keep his voice down as to not attract anymore walkers. "Fifteen?"

Alice nodded her head, pulling her knees into her chest as she wrapped her arms around them.

"Jesus. Well, t'at's scary." Connor said, stating the obvious before trying to stand up on his own. His body had shut off for a set amount of time, a scary thought for someone who always needs to be in control like him. Alice quickly jumped up, offering a hand to Connor as he tried to stand up on his own without causing any more damage to his body.

Connor finally stood up on his own, grabbing both Alice and a nearby tree for support. The world spun for about a minute, while at the time he wanted to sleep, vomit, and cry all at the same time. The bottom of his stomach lurched, the smell of the dead stronger than it had been before. Connor looked down at his hands dark red with dried blood when he remembered why he smelled of death.

More rustling came from beyond the green bush, hiding behind bushes and snapping saplings, three shadows moved beyond the trees. Connor watched out of pure curiosity as the three shapes made their way through the forest, far enough away that maybe they couldn't smell Alice and him.

One was a thin man, holding a gun in his hands as he determined eyes combed the forest. The next, following closer behind the man with the gun, was a talk black guy, mimicking the same motions that the other man was doing. Holding up the rear of the group was another white guy, kind of short, dirty, holding crossbow in his hands.

Connor felt his heart jerk in his chest at the face of the man, seeming so familiar to him. The whole thing felt like a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Once Connor realized that he was dreaming, that he must still be passed out, he also noticed the face of the man at the end of the group.

"Murphy." Connor whispered to himself, his eyes widening at the realization. It have to be a dream, it couldn't be him. It' couldn't be. "_Murphy_." He said again, the name finally not leaving such a sour taste on his tongue as his brother disappeared with the other group.

"Alice, Murph's alive." Connor said, his tone flat. "Fuckin' A - Murphy's alive." Connor grabbed at his hair, pulling it slightly as he began to panic. No, it couldn't be him. This had to be a dream. Murphy wasn't hear in the woods, he was out on the highway were Connor had left him. He couldn't be here, he couldn't be here. Despite Alice's pleas for him just to listen to her, he tuned the young girl out and began running through the forest after the small three-man group.

Murph couldn't be alive, he told himself, fighting that little voice in his head that told him just to shut up and enjoy the illusion. Enjoy the fact that your brother is back. It's not every day that God gives you a miracle. He could hear Alice's footsteps getting farther and farther away as she struggled to keep up, while he gained ground on the group.

Something inside Connor snapped, going from a deep seated urge to see that his brother was still alive, to fighting the memory. With every heavy step he took, he gained anger and frustration, until he took it out on the memory of his brother.

They didn't even see the flying Irishman coming.

Connor leapt towards the man with his brother's face, tackling him to the ground. In a series of angry grunts and confusion from the man with the deceased sibling's resemblance, Connor began to wrestle with the man with the crossbow on the cold wet grass. Connor fought with every ounce of his being, fighting the memory of what he'd done. It's couldn't be him, he thought to himself as fought against the struggling man, It couldn't be Murph.

His group was fast to respond, the scruffy man with a gun pulling at Connor's coat to no avail. "No… **No**! You're not real!" Connor shouted as he struggled against the man.

"Connor!" He heard Alice scream from behind him.

"Get him off!" The man hissed at his group as he fought with the Irishman, but he had the upper hand.

"You're not real!"

In an instant, Connor was straddling the man with his brother's face, pointing the barrel of his gun at his face.

"You're not real!" Connor screamed at the apparition. The man beneath him paused at the sight of his gun for a moment, raising his open palms over his shoulders as he surrendered to his fate. In those long seconds, Connor watched as the horror of his brother's face washed over his own. He soon realized he was holding a gun at his own brother, his twin, his best friend.

Connor, in all his pent up rage, should have pulled the trigger. He hesitated for a single moment, questioning what exactly he was doing before Connor was pulled from the living corpse of his brother.

The scruffy man with a gun quickly pulled him off, dragging him by his collar like a dog as the image of Murphy grasped at the crossbow that had been knocked from his side. He was frozen, in sheer horror of what he'd done to his own blood.

The scruffy man pushed him to the ground, having him lie on his injured back once again as he pointed his Python Colt .45 at the tired Irishman.  
"Stay down." The man ordered, pressing the cold metal to his burning hot skin.

Connor could finally breath, taking in what he'd done.

Murphy was now pointing the crossbow at him, his finger on the trigger and ready to shoot at the next outburst. The other man in the group, the tall man in a stocking cap wielding a hammer, now held Alice against a tree, searching for weapons. Alice peeked over her shoulder at the hallucinating man on the ground with immense worry. To be honest, he was worrying himself.

The man with the gun that was now resting on his cheek began to search him with one hand, patting down his person looking for anything out of the ordinary, while the man with the crossbow covered him. The leader of this group started at his chest, working his hands around his waist searching for anything that might hurt his own group.

"Besides the gun, do you have any weapons on you?" He asked, the words sounding rehearsed on his chapped lips. Connor shook his head timidly, giving the Murphy look-a-like something to chuckle at.

The man holding Alice asked the same question, this time sounding a little more genuine in his voice. She nodded her head. "In the bag." She said, defeated. The man holding Connor nodded to the man with the crossbow, silently ordering him to check the gym bag and the blue backpack for weapons.

Connor didn't fight with the man holding him as he turned him on his stomach, forcing his hands behind his back as Connor heard the order for _'Wire Ties_'.

The sharp plastic cut into the skin around his wrist with an almost comical 'zip' sound, restraining his hands behind his back for both their sake and his own. He didn't blame them, attacking a ghost of a person was something he could have never thought about doing, and yet he found himself face down in the grass.

The man with the crossbow knelt at the bags that had been taken from the girl, unzipping and going through everything in search of their weapons, finding the bloody hunting knife and a small .38 special in the back pack. In the gym bag was another identical Desert Eagle, like the one that had been pointed at his face just moment earlier. The man with the crossbow searched through the bag a bit more before making an assumption on these two.

"Got two guns, and knife." He said, his southern accent dripping with every word, pulling Connor from his hallucinatory state. Murph couldn't even fake a southern accent, his own being much too thick. Connor's brows furrowed before the man with the cross bow stood up with the two bags over his shoulders.

"She's got a machete on her." The man holding Alice said as he wrapped the plastic ties around her wrists as well, ignoring her groan of discomfort. He lifted the soggy piece of paper that Alice had on her when she ran to Connor's aid, looking over the contents of it. "And what looks like a map."

The man with the gun now stood over Connor, his .45 still pointed at the Irishman as he grabbed the map from his hand, looking it over. The ink had run severely now, looking nothing like the precise plans of the day before. It resembled more of a madman's doodles, which was fitting. The black marks on the map bleed together, from covering a half a mile radius to at least three from the bleeding ink alone, it wasn't even fit to use as kindling.

Connor's eye lids grew heavy, the pain in his back and head growing in intensity as his struggled to keep his eyes open.

The man with the gun rolled him back on his back, forcing him to look up at the grey sky and the encroaching tree line. It was beautiful, he thought as the world began to spin once more. The blur of Alice walked by, her hands tied behind her back as she walked over head of the dizzy saint, her words echoing in his head: _"Nice going, Leprechaun._"

Connor didn't remember anything afterwards.

* * *

Connor and Daryl are together at last!  
We'll see how long it takes them to kill each other.

Hope you enjoyed it!

~pure.


	4. Chapter 4

I do not own the Walking Dead or Boondock Saints. The rights are reserved for Robert Kirkman and AMC, and Troy Duff, respectfully.  
I own Alice, Red, and the rest of the camp.

* * *

When Connor woke up he was treated to the same pair of concerned blue eyes that had been following him for two days; and punished by their hands as she slapped the living hell out of his arm. Connor groaned as he tried to grab both of her arms, the wire ties finally off, before actually saying words. His eyes fluttered open to look at the dull grey surroundings.

Almost thinking that he was still outside, Connor groaned when he noticed the all too familiar look of bars on the windows and doors, reminding him of the time that he spent in Boston's own living hell, Hoag Maximum Security Prison. All prisons look the same on the inside, all grey and cold, restricting and uninviting. If there was ever a place Connor MacManus never wanted to be again, it would be another prison.

"What t'e hell you slappin' me for?" Connor groaned, letting go of the young woman's wrist as her turned over in his flat cot. Yep, this is prison, he told himself. The floor of the farm house felt better.

"Why am I slapping you? Hmm? Let's see." She hissed, sarcasm dripping from every word. "You attacked a perfectly random stranger in the middle of the woods, pointed a gun at his face, made his friends get mad at me, tie my hands behind me back, steal my shit, force me into a jail cell with _you_ – all because you had a mental-fucking-break down. So… Yeah… I think that gives me a right to slap you." She finished with another assault on his arm, hitting hard enough to irate him, but not enough to cause any damage bigger than a giant red mark on his arm.

"What? T'ey locked us in a jail cell? Why?"

"Because shooting us would be too messy – how the hell should I know?" She hissed once more before her eyes cut over to the barred door, more importantly the person standing on the other side of it. "Maybe you should ask 'em?"

Connor's neck craned over to the doorway, seeing the cowboy with the gun at the door, watching and listening with his hand resting on the handle of his gun. Connor groaned, forcing himself to sit on of the hard, stone like pad of a mattress.

"W'at can I do for you today?" Connor said, groaning as his faked a little kindness, hoping that might help get him off with the group. He didn't seem to react to the joke as he leaned against the bars of the cell.

"I'd like to know why you thought it would be wise to attack my group." He said questioningly, cocking his head to the side as if he was really trying to understand what he was thinking. "Now I hope that you aren't as stupid as you seem, attacking one of my best fighters in broad daylight, with reinforcements."

Connor's eyes quickly glanced over the cowboys shoulder, the man with the crossbow peeking in on their new prisoners. He looked like Murphy would have, long stringy hair stuck to his elongated face, his eyes narrow as he watched in silence at the two, like a child at the zoo.

"Murph." Connor mumbled to himself, gaining the extra attention from Alice as her eyes grew wide at the mention of his brother.

Alice did a double take, looking at Connor and then back at the man with the crossbow, her eyebrows knitting together as she shook her head. "Connor, that's not Murphy."  
"Murph."  
"No, Connor, it's not him."

Connor didn't listen to her as he stood from the cot and marched over to the cell door, his eyes stuck on the man with his brother's face. "What the hell are you takin' about?" The image of Murphy said, again with that southern drawl.

"Murph, It's me, Connor!" He said with just a hint of glee as Alice snaked her way between Connor and the iron bars. She grabbed onto his t-shirt, pulling him away from the bars as best as she could. "No, Connor. That's no him. It's not Murphy."

"No, but it is. Ti's my brother."  
"No Connor. That's not Murphy, okay?" Alice looked over her shoulder at the thoroughly freaked out Murphy impersonator. "It doesn't even look like him!"

"His name is Daryl." Rick tried to help clear up any confusion with a snarl in his lip. "Not Murphy."

Connor backed off the iron bars, starting to realize that it wasn't his brother. It couldn't be his brother, his brother was dead. His brother was outside of the King county line, not here in a prison cell.

Alice turned around to address the officer and the Murphy look-a-like, taking the reigns as Connor sat back down on the prison cot.

"I'll be taking your calls from now on, gentlemen." She tried joking as it fell on deaf ears. The scruffy man shifted, positioning himself better on the iron bars before he asked. "You and your friend have a lot of supplies. Looks like you're ready for quite the camping trip."  
"You know, we thought we might just see the world before, you know, we get eaten."

"Where are you two goin'?"  
"Atlanta." She said quickly as the two men both shared a look of concern to each other. The man with the cross bow crossed his arms over his chest, wanting to listen in on the conversation as it just got good.

"Atlanta?"  
"Yeah. We heard that some people there were working on a cure; have medicine, doctors, people – stuff like that." She explained, making the man nearest to her shuffle his feet as he stared at the concrete flooring. The man in the back with his arms crossed over his chest just shook his head.

"What?"  
"Atlanta belongs to the dead now." He told her, watching as her optimist expression soon dropped. "No one who is still in Atlanta is alive. It's crawling with walkers."

Connor jumped from the cot, making his way over to the bars behind Alice. "You mean, t'ere's no cure?"

"No. And there isn't anyone working on one neither."  
"What about the CDC? Don't t'ey specialize in t'is shit?"  
"The CDC is gone." The Murphy double said, his gruff voice echoing off the walls of the cell and Connor's head. "Blowed up real good."

Connor stood from his cot, his brows furrowing together as he tried to understand what Murphy was saying. He began to get lightheaded, grabbing onto the concrete walk to stop the world from spinning. The CDC, the cure, the only thing that was going to bring Murphy back was gone, disappeared, 'Blown up'. Connor felt a presents heavy in his heart, weighing it down; guilt. After everything, everything that Connor did for his brother, keeping him alive as long as he did, pushing him through the pain, promising a cure to this illness – it was all gone. Like a flash.

Alice ran her hands through her hair. "How long has it been gone?"  
"About a year or so. You didn't know that?" The man with the gun said, almost entertained by the idea of someone not knowing something that he knew.  
Alice narrowed her eyes at the man. "No we didn't. Obviously."

Connor had brought them out there for no reason, to be killed in Atlanta by the sound of it. Either the trek there or actually reaching Atlanta would have killed them if it wasn't for Murphy and his friends out in the woods.

The Lord works in mysterious ways…

"You have a group?" the man with the gun asked. "You couldn't have survived out there that long, just the two of you."  
"Especially with one of you crazy." Murphy said, his blue eyes narrowing at the Irishman.  
Connor shook his head and lied. "No, we're alone. Got kicked out of our group a while back. It's just been t'e two of us." Connor snaked his arm around Alice's shoulders in a protective way.

"Good." The man with the gun said, walking away from the bars and ending the conversation. Connor watched as he took the man with the crossbow with him, Murphy not looking back.

"Hey, wait!" Connor said, reaching his fingers around the iron bars. "Murph! Wait!"

He watched as he brother turned back for only a moment, a curious look on his face before turning back around and disappearing into the cell block. "Murph!" Connor screamed, his accent bouncing off the walls. Alice grabbed him by his shoulders, trying to get him to snap out of whatever dreamland he had disappeared into.

"Connor, stop!" She hissed at him, shaking him by the shoulders as he watched Murph disappear out of view. It was only after Connor could no longer see Murphy that he looked at Alice, like he was in some sort of trance around the man. Connor looked down at Alice with a haze in his eyes, like he wasn't really there. "You're scaring me."

Connor looked back passed the bars, seeing without seeing the other eyes in the cellblock looking at the two of them with a wild curiosity, the kind of looks that wild animals get at the zoo from the tourists.

"Connor." Alice tried again to get his attention. "It's not Murphy. That's not him."  
"But it is-"  
"No it's not. His name is Daryl, not Murphy." Alice said before pointing behind her. "He doesn't even look like him."

He didn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. Why couldn't his brother be alive? Why couldn't this Daryl guy be his brother? What was stopping him from making that happen?

"I know it's not him." Connor said quietly, lowering his eyes to the ground. "I see him everywhere t'ough. Just because it's t'e first time I've mentioned anything, doesn't mean –"  
"I know. I know." Alice said, resting her hand on Connor's shoulder, his skin suddenly feeling like it was on fire. "I see him too. I see him, I hear him, sometimes I can even smell him."  
"You're wearing his coat." Connor pointed out, sniffing loudly as Alice looked down at the black pea coat around her shoulders. "Oh… That might explain a couple things."

Connor laughed a real laugh, looking back at Alice once more. He'd gotten her into this mess, his plan backfired horribly; why did she still want to be around him? Maybe she was more of a shadow than he thought. He scratched behind his ear before asking in all seriousness: "He really doesn't look like Murphy to you?"

Alice turned around, catching a glimpse of the crossbow wielding man passing the hallway before she turned back around. "The nose, maybe?" She said with a shrug, giving Connor a slight smirk.

* * *

Red Donahue tracked the footsteps to a large farmhouse. The pair of boot prints lead up the porch to the front door, which had been standing wide open. With his pistol withdrawn and his finger on the trigger, Red made his way into the farmhouse, while the rest of the group stayed outside near the cars. He'd have to kill the Irishman for this, taking his only daughter God knows when there are walkers around every corner? Red prayed, for Connor's sake, the he never finds them alive.

He followed the muddy boot prints through the house, most of them being right in the living room area, while the dining room was blocked off by couches and furniture. Yeah, they were definitely here.

Red walked through the house some more, exploring a bit before he came across the curious smell of a fire pit. Besides the fire burning on the hot coals, Red could smell something else, the putrid smell of rotten eggs being cooked, with a sweet smell alongside that Red couldn't put his finger on. Red ran through the house, making his way to the back porch easily. He ran through the storm door quickly, covering his nose and face at the intense smell.

Close to eight bodies were lying in the open fire pit, lying on top of one another. Their clothes had already burned to ash, their infected blood burning and probably giving off the sweet, metallic sense in the air. Each one was shot in the head, their bodies burned for cleanliness.

Red silently cursed his daughter; if this was her idea of staying low and not being found out, then she had another thing coming…

Silas walked around the side of the house, not taking a chance being attacked by walkers without a weapon, to Red's side, watching the Walkers bodies bubble and pop on the hot coals.

"They were here." Red said quickly, running his hands through his thinning hair line. "They've probably been gone a couple hours though.  
"That's good right? At least they got away."  
Red's eyes cut over to Silas as the young man avoided Red's gaze. "Got away? Are you suggesting that they wanted to get away from me?"  
"No, that's not what I meant-"  
"It sure as hell sounds like it. They day I want your opinion I will give you one!"

Silas looked away from the screaming mad man, watching out for walkers as if he cared. Surely most everyone in the group would agree that if Red would get eaten by these lamebrains it would do the group a lot better.

Red's eyes traced along a new set of tracks from the fire pit leading out to the woods; Two sets, one larger, about a size ten boot and the other smaller maybe size six-seven hiking boot. They were through here.

The group began to move into the farm house, taking the bags and personal items from the vehicles and moving them into the house, Red's mind was working in over time. If he could find where they had gone, maybe he could bring them back – Lord knows they need the fire power. Silas went in the house through the back porch, the storm door slammed shut as he made a joke about having to get that fixed. Red silently shook his head while watching the pile of bodies' burn. They wouldn't be here that long, not long enough to get comfy.

He was going after Connor and Alice.

* * *

Night had fallen over the prison. Connor and Alice watched in silence at the inner mechanics of the prison as it worked like a well wound watch. The people inside the prison, mothers, grandmothers, children, watched the two of them inside of the cell like zoo animals. It was getting to Connor more than Alice as he was mentally drained. Never before had he been so powerless, and the idea of it was making him sick to his stomach.

Shortly after the prison curfew and all the survivors went to bed, Connor did as well, burying himself beneath the wool blanket even on the sticky, hot summer night.

Alice waited up, watching the moon outside the one window in this prison, giving some relief to the idea of being held captive in a prison. She sat against the bar; her knees drawn close to her heart as she watched the moon light slowly make its way across the floor.

The cell door opened in, causing Alice to jump and be pulled from her day dream as a shadowed man walked in with a plate of food. It wasn't anything major, a bit of canned beans and some almost-molding bread, but it was more than she'd seen all day. Her eyes grew at the mere sight of food before the man put it down on the floor.

"I thought you weren't supposed to feed the animals."  
"For you and the Leprechaun." The southern drawl said quickly and quietly, hoping not to wake anyone up. Alice looked up at the man and was taken a back at how much he really did look like Murphy in this light.

"Thank you." She said, whispering before ripping the stale bread in half. "For everything."  
Murphy eyed her curiously, staying silent.

"If it wasn't for your group, then we'd still be out there. Lord knows how long we'd survive. Connor's not that good with tracking things. He's a shepherd, not a hunter."  
"Sounds like he's got a lot more problems than that." He said. Alice nodded her head, peeking over at the tuff of dirty blond hair that poked up over the blanket.

"He lost his brother." She admitted. "About a month ago. He used to be really calm and laid-back, easy to get along with but – after Murphy died, he's been different. Distant, jaded."  
The Murphy look-alike almost nodded his head, understanding the pain of losing a brother like that.

"Is it the same guy that he was calling me out in the woods? Michael?"  
"Murphy, and yes." Alice said, "I'm sorry about that again. I know he won't apologize, but he really didn't mean to hurt yah."  
"He pointed a gun in my face."  
"If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't personal."

Murphy shook his head, setting the plate down in the cell before going to leave.  
"We've all lost people." Murphy said, closing the cell door behind him with a metallic ring. "Tell him to get over it."

Alice was left alone in the darkness once more, the moonlight had crossed another couple inches since her talk with the Murphy double. She looked over at Connor, hiding underneath the blanket and hogging most of it.

Alice stood up from her place near the bars, picking up the plate as she went and walked over to the small cot where the tired saint was resting. He'd be hungry in the morning, she thought to herself, setting the plate down by the bed side.

Slowly, Alice climbed into the cot, the springs the enemy as they shrieked with every muscle she moved. She climbed into the cot, snuggling up to the warm body beside her. It had been so long since she's slept by herself. She felt Connor move beside her, moving around as he shared some of the coveted blanket with the young girl spooning him.

It was a comfort that she could not afford to lose, sleeping next to someone else. Alice tried to keep a distance between Connor and herself, but in the tight confines of the cot that was virtually impossible. Before long, Alice found herself sleeping _on_ Connor instead of sleeping beside of him.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed it!

~pure.


End file.
